The Frugality of Donald Trump

In a speech delivered yesterday by Donald Trump in Arizona, the businessman turned politician lauded that he had only spent approximately $200,000 promoting his campaign.

In scouring the Trump campaign’s FEC reports, the candidate was referring to a $201,073 list rental to NewsMax Media.

That’s nothing outstanding for most candidates, but for Trump, the expenditure was an outlier.

Out of the 1,547 itemized expenditures through September 30th of of 2015, only 132 bills were paid to the typical consulting class that we see rampant with other campaigns.

Of the $5.4 million spent by Trump, only $1.2 million went to consultants, promotion and polling.

Of course that sounds like a lot of money, but let’s compare that to Texas Senator Ted Cruz.

Not including SuperPACs, Cruz has spent $12.6 million in total, of which $6.5 million went to consultants, promotion and polling.

Cruz handed over 51% of his expenditures to the typical DC consultant class, while Trump handed over only 22% to them.

To people outside of the Beltway, the numbers above tell a story of efficiency and thriftiness on the part of Trump.

Inside the Beltway, the republican consultant class is fuming.

What Trump is doing is proving that the tens of millions of dollars spent on consultants in past presidential elections was essentially a waste. Especially in the cases of McCain and Romney where many beach homes were purchased by GOP consultants off of the backs of those failures.

Trump, using his unfiltered candor, has been able to energize the nation that has grown weary of Washington politicians.

Sen. Ted Cruz’s campaign has spent more on flowers (over $1,000) than Trump has spent on survey research ($0).

While Trump boasts of his vast wealth and appears to have no problem spending money like a fat kid in a candy story, his habits prove that the rich don’t succeed by simply spending their profits – they succeed by spending their profits wisely.

Trump’s campaign expenditures, which look like a campaign from the 1970’s where most money is invested in travel and reaching the public directly, appear to prove his point that he would run the government with efficiency – assuming he would be as careful with the taxpayers’ money as he is with his own hard-earned dollars.